The Hungry and The Dead in New York
Friday, September 20th, 2013
Bob and I had one more piece of business to attend to before leaving New Jersey and heading back into the state of New York, where, with one brief international exception, we’d be spending the rest of trip before driving back to my house. Naturally, that one piece of business on the morning of Saturday, June 1, 2013, was breakfast. We left our Howard Johnson hotel in Newark and headed to Jersey City for dining at the Brownstone Diner. Read the rest of this entry »
Considering our late night the night before, Bob and I managed to get up relatively early, get ready and head out for our second day in New York City, on the morning of Tuesday, May 28, 2013. Readers of this blog will already have some idea of the types of things that were on our radars for the day. Needless to say there are lots and lots of things to do in New York City, but most of the things I was focusing on during this first visit had to do with either the entertainment industry or Presidential/historical sites. And a little bit of sports I suppose. It was just a bit after 8am as we began our day, heading from our hotel on 46th street toward the subway stop on 42nd street, Bob opting to stop at McDonalds for a quick breakfast on the way. 
It had been a great week in New York city and just as soon as I had grown accustomed to the Big Apple and its ultra-convenient subway system, it was time to leave Manhattan behind and begin the second portion of the two-week trip – which would be continued on the road. I slept in as long as I possibly could before packing up, but was still able to meet Bob and his merry band of travelers down in the lobby by 10am. A shuttle picked us up shortly thereafter and we headed out of the city toward Newark, New Jersey and the Liberty International Airport. It was Friday, May 31, 2013, and it was time for Phase B of our New York trip. 
With the number of times that I’ve flown into New York City, I have spent very scant time doing anything there. The first time I made it into the city was in 1994 when the Sons of the Desert Convetion was held in Tareytown, on the far northern outskirts of the city. My family and my friend John Poe took a train into Grand Central and walked around, doing little else but gawking. My friend Peter guided me to 
I had stayed up later than Bob the night before watching the TV pilot episode of Newhart on my laptop after Bob had already fallen asleep. The reason why is that I was sleeping inside the Waybury Inn, in East Middlebury, Vermont – which was used as the establishing shot of the Stratford Inn on one of my all-time favorite sitcoms Newhart. Mind you they never actually filmed anything here other than shots of the inn. Bob Newhart had never even been at the inn. But in watching the show, you see it two or three times per episode, so it had become ingrained in my mind, so since the beginning of this trip’s inception, staying here was a must.